Not Just Another Dentist Story

Does anyone not cringe at this photo?

Yes, this is a dentist story. 

I broke a tooth. I had no choice but to call the dentist. Ugh, and I already have an appointment scheduled for next week, so I’ll be seeing the dentist twice in 7 days. Be still my nervous system!

In driving 35 minutes to the dentist (make that 50 minutes since I followed 3 tractors with hay rigs), I managed to work myself into a full gut-rolling, sweaty-palmed, pocketbook-squeezing panic.  Oh the drill, the dental pick, the cost!!  The broken one is my ‘sinus tooth,’ the left rear molar. In which my sinus nerve dizzily loops down to dance with the roots of said tooth. 

A hygienist once hit that sinus nerve with one of her pointy picks and hew-boy! I felt stars that morphed into networks of tiny lightning strikes.

So, now I’m in the dreaded chair. Hygienist marvels at the perfect half-moon sliver of missing tooth. She speaks of crowns and caps and removing whole fillings. The rest of my body begins sweating.  She finishes her assessment and ushers in the chief.  

Dentist:  “Wow, I’ve never seen such a perfect tiny sliver of missing tooth!” (I sense a conspiracy)  After a minute of shining lights and poking, she says, “Ah, I can easily fix this. It won’t take but a minute.” (I relaxed just a smidgen, trying not to look as doctor and hygienist put on full body armor and adjust their eyeball-burning head lamps)

Dentist, hesitates as she holds drill mid-air above my head:  “Did you want numbed?”

My brain is trying to read her mind, trying to be grown up, trying to not look petrified. (Yes! Please, knock me out completely. I don’t want to hear, smell, feel or see anything!) I never utter a sound but, I blink one time too many. She reassures me.

Dentist: “It will only be a few seconds. The numbing will be far worse than the drilling.”   

Me: (Still not uttering a sound. Wide eyed though.) The dentist takes off her mask, her headlight, the magnifying scope thingy protruding like an eyeball on a stick between her two beautifully set eyes. She puts one hand on my shoulder and looks right into my eyes. (Probably seeing sweat in there) 

She sees me. And, she lets me see her;  her real self behind the mask. She spreads a table of our shared humanity and invites me to dinner.  

“I promise I will not torture you.”  I look from her very pregnant swollen belly to her kind eyes. Would a pregnant, due-on-Friday female dentist (I overheard talk of her having contractions), lie to me just to get me over myself and get herself home faster? I smile then, showing my trust in her.  

“Okay, go ahead.” (I’ll scream if you hurt me though.) Oh wait. I said that last part out loud.

We both laugh as she repositions her body armor and gets to work. For the first time in my life, since going to a horse doctor of a dentist in my childhood, a tooth is being drilled and I can feel everything.  (I even had teeth extracted as a kid with very little numbing. Was told, ‘It’ll be over before you know it.” It wasn’t. And what kid doesn’t relive trauma over again in nightmares?) 

Decades later, another dentist actually made fun of me for saying I could feel his drilling after he gave me Novocain. His words had ‘big baby’ in them even if he didn’t say them out loud.

Back to the present – as the aroma of metal fills the air, the sound of buzzing too, along with sensations of gagging despite multiple sucky contraptions decorating my lower jaw, pressure, weird hot and cold sensations in my tooth, music playing, people talking in the cubicles to the right and left, smells of close bodies and reminders to myself to 

   

            B

                R

                   E

                       A

                           T

                              H

                                 E 

I manage to cope reasonably well. Dental work is sensory overload for me. Overload usually combined with pain and distrust. I tell myself this dentist must feel air from my nose moving on her gloved hand or she might stop like the dentist before did, and grill me.

“Are you okay?”

“Are you sure?” 

“You have to breathe, so I can continue. No one faints in my office.”

Said more gently than the Not More Novocain Dentist, but with a smile that still didn't reach the heart.

Now, every cell in both of my lungs wants to retain air, but I breathe out. In and out, in and out. Then, just like that, it’s over. This dentist told the truth. It truly was less than a minute of drilling!

Afterward, we chat about babies, giving birth, weather and coffee flavors; about everything but dentistry. I'm delighted in her treating me like a friend, a human being worthy of dignity. Not a ‘tiny mouth that is so inconvenient for me to work in” or ‘oh gawd, not another person with a dentist phobia.’ She is not in a hurry to get home. In fact, she plops on a nearby chair and tells me she’s having contractions. Maybe this is her lucky day. (She’s about to work harder than she’s ever worked but it’s her lucky day.

I left with an astounding thought - I just might love my new dentist! 

                                                    ~ ~ ~ 

My farmer making a mowed hay mandala!   I thought of this in the dentist chair - a lovely distraction.